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The Displaced New Orleans Residents Survey (DNORS)

The Displaced New Orleans Residents Survey (DNORS) is a study of individuals and households that resided in the City of New Orleans, Louisiana, in August 2005, just before Hurricane Katrina struck (on August 29, 2005). Fieldwork for the study was conducted between mid-2009 and mid-2010. The aim of the study was to collect data for analyzing the location, living arrangements, health, and well being of residents who were displaced by the hurricane.

DNORS drew a sample of pre-Katrina dwellings of the city, identified the pre-storm residents of these dwellings, and tracked and interviewed these people wherever they lived at the time of the survey. In particular, DNORS interviewed pre-Katrina residents of New Orleans who had returned to the city as well as residents who had resettled elsewhere.

The DNORS study builds on an earlier pilot study, the Displaced New Orleans Residents Pilot Survey (DNORPS), which was fielded in the fall of 2006. Documents describing DNORPS and initial analyses using that data can be found in the Publications section of this website.

We currently offer Public Use Data and Restricted Use Data for the DNORS, and, for historical purposes, the earlier DNORPS.

The DNORS was conducted by the RAND Corporation, a non-profit research organization in Santa Monica, California, with fieldwork conducted by the University of Michigan Survey Research Center.

About DNORS

The Displaced New Orleans Residents Survey is being conducted within RAND Labor and Population under the auspices of the RAND Gulf States Policy Institute.

RAND Gulf States, a collaboration among the RAND Corporation and seven Gulf states universities, assists in long-term recovery efforts in the Gulf by providing evidence-based policy guidance to facilitate and speed regional recovery and growth, re-establish services and result in a wise investment in infrastructure.

Labor and Population, a RAND research program, has built its international reputation by addressing head-on the world's most complex labor and social welfare issues.

Project Team Director

Adjunct Senior Social Scientist

Narayan Sastry is an adjunct senior social scientist at the RAND Corporation. He is also a research professor in the Population Studies Center and Survey Research Center at the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research. Sastry has been at the University of Michigan since 2006. He…

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